Voodoo Vince was an early entry (2003) in the 3D platformer genre for the Xbox. The title exceeds in being fun, unique and very stylish. You play as Vince, a tiny smart-ass voodoo doll who has to save the world from an evil mastermind. Playing as a voodoo doll opens up all sorts of unique puzzle elements and this is what elevates it from being a generic game. You see, things that normally hurt you in games, fire, blenders, falling anvils, etc...have no effect on Vince. In fact, you must learn how to manipulate your surroundings in order to advance and in most cases this means hurting Vince in one way or another. Its an interesting twist and I found the maiming puzzles quite fun.

VDV controls like a dream. You have total control over the camera via the right analog stick, he can do a spin attack (ripped straight out of Crash Bandicoot) punch, hover and perform voodoo attacks. When you attack enemies they drop beads (think Mardi Gras since the game takes place in New Orleans) and these beads fill up an attack meter as well as your life. When your attack meter is full you can unleash a voodoo attack that maims Vince (no damage is done though) and mimics the attack on all surrounding foes. I love sawing the frog-like creatures you battle in half (it warms the cockles of my twisted heart...)

VDV is a very pretty game and the Big Easy vibe is captured quite nicely. The environments are detailed and extremely colorful (purple and blues dominate the color palette). Along with the great visuals you will also be treated to a wide variety of jazz tunes and they are all easy on the ears. There is one particular diddy that plays when you set yourself on fire and it reminds me of the Ren and Stimpy theme song (fantastic indeed!).

All in all VDV is a really solid platformer that does the fundamentals perfectly and tosses in plenty of style to boot (think if Tim Burton created New Orleans). If you own an Xbox and you are starved for some 3D platforming than Vince might just quench your desire. The unique puzzles are interesting and there are plenty of secrets hidden in each area. You can find this game for around $15 and its well worth the price of admission.

The Good - Creative theme, great visual flair, interesting puzzles and a completely unique take on a stale genre.

The Bad - Bottomless pits are strewn about, enemies could use some variety, some humor falls flat.

I just recently came across this game, and I must say its definetly extremely fun and underrated, it gets really hard towards the end (i'm stuck at the final level) but its one of those games you just find yourself coming back to

I turned Ozzybear onto this one. He an I are always scrounging the bargin bins for those tidbit titles that seem to have vanished underneath the next iteration of popular games...who wants yet another NFS title or clone, when VDV, imo, is one of those refreshing titles that you can get excited about, an breathes some much-needed variety into the original Xbox.

Hey thanks for promoting this one Critic. I haven't played this game since I reviewed it many years ago! I wonder if it still holds up?

The game was released to tepid reviews and I picked it up on the cheap at the good ol FYE bargin bin (that place was a goldmine for cheap PS2/Xbox/GC games). I think I just had really low expectations of the game going into it and ended up being nicely surprised. Plus finding a decent platformer on original Xbox was no easy task.

It looks like you can still acquire this game fairly cheap on amazon and ebay (about $20). Though this doesn't look like one of the original xbox games that is backwards compatible with the 360...